St Luke’s Gift Day | A Rocha UK - Ian McKay
A Rocha UK is one our focus missions for Gift Day (19 October), together with Genesis Trust and Ripple Effect.
A Rocha UK is a Christian charity working for the protection and restoration of the natural world and committed to mobilising Christians and churches in the UK to care for the environment, as part of a global network of organisations working in over 20 countries across the world.
St Luke’s is registered with A Rocha’s Eco Church programme, and we hold a Bronze Award. The Eco Church programme helps us to think about our impact using 5 categories:
Worship and Teaching
Buildings and Energy
Land and Nature
Community and Global Engagement, and
Lifestyle.
Co-ordinating our response to the Eco Church programme is our Eco Team: Jan Rich, Ann Hatton, Polly McKay and Ian McKay. Our vision (a simple statement of what is important to us - what good looks like for St Luke’s) is:
To be a community that takes joy in being part of God's creation, and responds collectively and individually by living simply, and seeking positive change.
The following aspirational statements reflect what we think that looks like for St Luke’s:
We worship our Creator God and seek his heart
We pray for our world and support positive change
We seek to use our assets (especially buildings and land) for people and nature, and steward them with care
We play our part in our wider community, being a positive partner with those with the same goals
We help each other to enjoy creation and live more simply
The Eco Team would be very interested to hear your thoughts on this.
Back to A Rocha UK, because Eco Church is just one of their programmes.
The history of the A Rocha movement is built on direct, hands on, nature and habitat conservation work. In the UK this began with the restoration of a piece of land by the River Thames in West London, now known as Minet Country Park, which is owned by Hillingdon Council and managed in partnership with A Rocha Living Waterways. A Rocha UK still manages two sites, one urban and one rural. Wolf Fields in Southall is a small site next to a school, managed in partnership with the local community to create a place of healing and restoration for nature and for people. Foxearth Meadows Nature Reserve sits on the River Stour floodplain in a quiet corner of Essex on the border with Suffolk. Its primary wildlife value is odonata – dragonflies and damselflies, so very much worth a visit particularly in the Summer.
Though A Rocha UK manages these two sites directly, the impact of its work is mainly through influencing others. There is no desire to compete with bigger secular organisations such as the National Trust, RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts. Instead, A Rocha UK works in partnership with these organisations, who (genuinely) value the input of a Christian organisation. This influencing and encouraging work is through:
Advocacy: for example the “30 by 30” (or “Rewild the Church”) campaign to encourage the Church of England Church Commissioners to make better use of their significant land assets for nature
Partners in Action: creating a network of Christian land owners and managers (for example Lee Abbey in Devon) to give mutual support as they consider how the land they control can be good for nature and people
Eco Church: for churches
Wild Christian: for individuals and families
As we support and partner with A Rocha UK, I believe that this is an expression of our worship of God the creator, of hope in His promises, and of a desire to care for, and live in balance with, all of the creation of which we are a part (and not “apart”).
Explore A Rocha’s work around the world at https://arocha.org/en/about/
Find out more about Eco Church at https://ecochurch.arocha.org.uk/eco-church-survey/
Pray with A Rocha UK at https://arocha.org.uk/get-involved/pray/